


Hard to Say It, Time to Say It

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles discovers something almost as satisfying as a complex bestiary with a convenient bookmark on the creature they were after: Hale family photo albums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to Say It, Time to Say It

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Nickelback's Photograph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0DU4DoPP4), because I'm feeling nostalgic. 
> 
> Timeframe is some vague post-kanima & alpha pack future, with Derek and Cora not leaving Beacon Hills. I more or less pretend that 3B never existed and I still haven't seen season 4.
> 
> Based on [a prompt](http://wynnebat.tumblr.com/post/119862480423/stiles-finds-photos-of-bb-peter-and-shenanigans) by [screaming-towards-apotheosis](http://screaming-towards-apotheosis.tumblr.com/) <3

Thirty hours of useless research on the most recent creature plaguing Beacon Hills, over ten cups of coffee, and eight empty, dug-up graves into Stiles' first week of his senior year of high school, Derek reluctantly said, "If Deaton won't help you, then I still have the key to my family's storage unit. They... might have something useful."

Stiles almost dropped his mug of cold coffee in his haste to swivel his chair around toward Derek. He wasn't bothered by the man sneaking into his room unannounced—by this point, Stiles was pretty sure he'd been Stockholmed into thinking of it as a gesture of friendship—or even surprised, having developed a sixth sense for people stomping on his roof. No, it was Derek's words that caused Stiles' fingers to twitch as he contemplated the notion of his hands vs. Derek's reflexes.

"Are you trying to say there was a mine of information about the supernatural in Beacon Hills all along? Throughout the alpha pack shitstorm? And while I was learning Latin to read the bestiary? And after Jackson's tiny lizard problem?" Actually trying to strangle Derek wouldn't work out in his favor, but holy crap, if what Derek was saying was true, Stiles was going to rate him even below Deaton in information sharing.

Derek scowled, adjusting his position of leaning against Stiles' window frame. "It's nothing like that. I never said anything because I don't think there's anything useful in there. There's just old... personal belongings."

"Perso— Right. Gotcha." An uncomfortable feeling of something like sympathy and maybe a little like pity hung in the air around them.

"There's some books, too."

And there went that feeling, veering right back into annoyance again. "Oh my god, I almost hope nothing in there is helpful, because if it is, we're going to have _words_."

Derek sighed. "You know, there was a point when you were actually afraid of me."

"Long gone, bro. Now I alternate between annoyed and embarrassed for your fashion sense. All that leather can't be good for you and what's worse, you drag everyone I know into it."

But Derek didn't take the bait, instead saying, "You were terrified of Peter at one point, too."

"When he was fully insane and killing people around the clock, yeah. He's only halfway insane now. It's progress." And he wasn't murdering people quite as often. In Stiles' sophomore year, it had averaged out to one a week for those first few months; now, the last person Peter had killed had been Gerard, and Stiles was never going to feel remorse over Gerard's death. Stiles had been kidnapped and beaten, all for a message that had never needed sending in the first place; he'd only spoken of it once, after over twenty hours of being awake and Peter as his only witness. He told him of the pain, the humiliation, and of the town he'd eventually tracked Gerard to after he'd fled.

Two weeks later, Stiles found a newspaper with Gerard's obituary on his desk. They never mentioned him again, but afterwards, Stiles began making a second mug of coffee for their researching binges, and occasionally sitting with Peter during pack meetings. It wasn't a hardship; the man was sarcastic and funny and understood that maybe giving a second chance was sometimes one chance too much.

Deucalion's name still hung on the tip of Stiles' tongue, and Stiles sometimes thought that maybe, Peter looked ready to hear it, even if Stiles wasn't ready to say it. Even if he did want to make sure that the alpha wolf of a pack of murderers would never bother them again, morals were a tricky thing to combat.

"He's still a murderer," Derek muttered.

There wasn't anything Stiles could say to that; Stiles didn't have any siblings, but he'd lost his mother, and he thought he might know something about the pain Derek still felt at Laura's loss. Because it wasn't Kate whom Derek was angry over, or the people who'd aided in Kate's plot, or whoever else Peter might have killed in his life. It was Laura, always Laura, and her specter would never dissipate from Derek's view of Peter.

But to Stiles, Peter wasn't Laura's murderer. He was the man who stopped to ask him if he wanted the bite and let him go when Stiles said no; he was the man who heard Stiles when his voice was drowned out during pack meetings; he was the man who wanted power but wouldn't stoop to killing the boy he'd turned himself.

"And a sociopath," Derek added. "I know you've been spending a lot of time with him—"

"Is this your way of staging an intervention? Because I respond to banners a lot better than to words. And cake. If it's written on cake, I'll definitely give it a go."

"I'm just saying..." Derek huffed. "You know what I'm saying. And you're going to do what you like regardless. I don't know why I'm bothering."

That was alright; Stiles knew: because at some point, just as Peter had changed from being the villain of their story, Derek had evolved into an actual person instead of a stalker with a murder-vibe. "It's fine. I won't tell anyone you have warm, protective feelings."

And, there was the glare. Stiles had almost missed it.

"It's not my feelings you should be worrying about," Derek replied, glaring all the way through. "But I refuse to even think about that."

Had Derek...? Derek vanished too quickly for Stiles to ask whose feelings he'd meant, throwing a key and some directions at him and leaving Stiles to bite on the end of his pen as he wondered if he was really so transparent. It had been one thing to be open about his feelings for Lydia. Lydia, the goddess that she was, hadn't cared enough to crush his anxiously beating heart. And when they'd actually become friends, Stiles' feelings faded on their own. The fact that she loved Jackson after everything was still one of the greatest mysteries of the world to him, but it was a mystery he couldn't change.

The person who'd wormed his way into Stiles' heart afterwards wasn't in the habit of treating people with kid gloves. Rejection in the form of Peter's biting wit would actually hurt.

Stiles gave the unhelpful books one last glare and took off for the one place in the town that might actually be of use. The Hales had been an old pack, and with any luck, at least one book of theirs would have the knowledge they needed. Otherwise, well, Stiles was considering throwing up his hands and letting the probably-not-zombies just have the town already. It had just been that kind of week.

Three calls to Derek to get better directions later, Stiles was rolling up the door of the Hales' storage unit. It wasn't the largest space—only fifteen by fifteen feet, Stiles eyeballed, but it was jam-packed with cardboard boxes and a few surviving pieces of furniture. He noticed a couple bookshelves, some of whose shelves held actual books, but most only smaller boxes. Rolling up his sleeves and rolling down the door (after finding the light switch, anyway), Stiles got to work.

He carefully ignored the belongings that didn't still smell of smoke; they were Laura's, and after nudging aside a soft blue dress and outdated law textbooks, Stiles couldn't quite muster the nerve to look closer. Setting aside those boxes for later, he focused on going through the rest of the Hale family's belongings. He found cookbooks, crime novels, and a couple supernatural books that he'd already filched from Deaton.

An hour into his searching, Stiles was almost ready to call the idea a failure. He could probably break into Deaton's office again. He was pretty sure that Peter would be willing to help him antagonize the less-than-open emissary.

It was only then that Stiles discovered something almost as satisfying as a complex bestiary with a convenient bookmark on the creature they were after: Hale family photo albums. There was a whole stack of them, hidden at the bottom of a box that was below more boxes and old skiing equipment, which were behind a bookshelf that was taller than Stiles. He pushed away the memories of his mother painstakingly compiling similar ones. As a kid, the mystery of perfectly placing the pages without any air bubbles popping up had eluded him, but Talia—or Talia's husband, and Stiles swallowed as he realized that he now knew what the man looked like but still didn't know his name—had been as good as his mom.

Maybe it had even been Talia's parents who put together the oldest album, because Stiles laughed out loud as he realized it was Peter who was the tiny little thing in a yellowing frame. Peter and Talia, on swingsets and kindergarten chairs and naked in a bathtub with a collection of floating toy trucks.

He wondered what Peter would give to prevent Stiles from showing the photos to everyone he knew. Then he wondered if instead of panicking, Peter would just chuckle and help Stiles distribute them. He wanted to know. He wanted to know _everything_. As he looked through the albums, his focus shifted from the rest of the family to Peter. He'd already guessed that Peter was photogenic, but as he flipped through the photos, Stiles smiled with uncontrollable fondness as the Peter on the pages slowly morphed into the one he knew. The onesie-wearing child grew into a chalk-covered-boy and into a slightly sullen teen. Pages later, the teen was a twenty-something, and he was sprawled across a beach towel and smirking into the camera, clad only in wet swim trunks. The trunks did nothing to conceal the curve of his muscles and the slight bulge at his groin.

Stiles could barely tear his eyes away from the photo. He traced the lines of Peter's body with his eyes. When he closed them, he could see him clear as day, etched into the back of Stiles' eyelids.

And because he'd been sitting cross-legged with the album on his lap, Stiles carefully slid it down onto the floor instead, because his jeans were feeling uncomfortably tight.

There was no need to feel guilty. He was a teenager.

It wasn't like he was going to jerk off while staring at it.

Because he wasn't, he told his cheerfully hardening cock.

Right, well, morally speaking, this was a pretty vague area. Most people were pretty okay with people fantasizing about them while wanking off, right? (Stiles mentally gave everyone he knew permission to fantasize about him. And then hopefully ask him to join in, because it would be nice to get laid sometime this century.) This was just an extension of that. Totally alright. Probably.

Stiles swallowed and turned the page.

It didn't get any better. In fact, it got worse, because the next tanned, mysteriously bare-chested Peter was a few years older, a few years closer to the Peter Stiles knew and already fantasized about. Because as handsome as this smirking man was, he wasn't the one Stiles wanted. God help him, but it was his older, darker, snarkier self who Stiles wanted to push into bed. To buy dinner for, to make out with during a movie, to casually insult people with. Stiles continued turning the album's pages and wondered what, exactly, was wrong with him and his life choices.

He didn't wonder long, because the storage unit's door began to rise. It hit the top with a clang, shaking Stiles out of his stupor. He grabbed the closest usable weapon—a wooden plank with a very nasty, soot-darkened nail jutting out of the top—and slowly climbed to his feet.

The storage unit wasn't large enough for the intruder to not eventually find him, but Stiles heard his voice long before he saw him.

"Your heartbeat was like a beacon," Peter said, making his way from around one of the bookcases. He looked approvingly at Stiles' makeshift weapon. "You might want to do something about it, lest someone unsavory follows it."

"Hilarious," Stiles muttered, lowering the plank. Sometimes, he thought Peter genuinely liked trying to be a Disney villain, complete with the vaguely creepy dialogue and all. "What are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?" Stiles hadn't even realized _here_ existed until an hour ago.

"I've had an alarm set on the door ever since I woke up."

"And you've already grabbed all the good books, I bet," Stiles said. As he spoke, he dropped the plank—there wasn't any need for it now—and wiped the soot from his hands on his jeans. It didn't help very much, since there were specks of dirt and soot all over them anyway; whoever had collected all of the Hales' surviving belongings hadn't done a very good job of at least cleaning them first. Which made him wonder, "But wouldn't they have burned? Paper isn't known for surviving house fires easily."

"Some turned out to have a better magical protection on their binding than the actual house," Peter replied, his voice unnaturally calm. With a raised eyebrow at the book at Stiles' feet, he added, "Including some photo albums."

"It's not snooping if I have a key," Stiles told him, and sat back down to his previous spot. If Peter wasn't explicitly stating he should leave it alone, then he was going to snoop to his heart's content.

Looking down at the album, which also included looking in the general direction of his groin, Stiles had the terrible realization that Peter could probably smell his arousal with his wolfy senses.

He glanced at Peter, who was smirking.

There was no probably.

But now, Stiles had another frame of reference for the smirk, could see the same smirk on Peter's ten and fifteen and twenty-five year old self, and maybe a little embarrassment was worth that.

Or a lot of embarrassment, as Stiles realized that the photo album was resting on Derek's prom photos.

"I'm not creeping on Derek," he explained. It didn't sound as good as it did in his head.

Peter raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you're only appreciating his good looks." A pause, and then: "Your crush on my nephew is incredibly distasteful."

"Wait, you think—" Stiles shut his mouth. "Yeah, uh, Derek is hot." It wasn't a lie; Peter's nephew was an attractive man. They'd spent enough time in each other's company (mostly during pack meetings and ridding Beacon Hills of supernatural pests) for Stiles to appreciate Derek's hotness. But if Peter was under the impression that it was Derek around whom Stiles' thoughts circled, he was absolutely terrible at being a werewolf. Not that Stiles was planning to clear things up, Stiles decided, coughing awkwardly as he thought of something, anything else to discuss.

"What do you see in him?" Peter asked. He dragged a cardboard box closer, and sat down, ankles crossed, knees spread open. Stiles wondered how much of his attraction he could blame on Peter just being _really fucking hot_.

"He's—" Stiles tried to think of Derek objectively, but... Screw it. "He's strangely kind, in his own way. I never expected that after how we first met."

"Really." Peter's voice was hard as stone.

Thinking back on their first meeting, Stiles had to smile. He'd been so fucking terrified. Peter had been so fucking insane. Neither of this had stopped him from taunting the creature that had cornered him and his friends (or rather, friends plus Jackson). Maybe Peter's insanity had transferred to him, because the memories of that alpha were dulled by his fondness of the man he'd gotten to know.

"He respects me. He's an asshole, which I probably shouldn't be so into, but I am. He's my friend—not my best friend, because even if Scott's an idiot, that's his job—but the closest I've had since Scott. He understands my research binges. He knows what it's like to make mistakes. He's... He makes me happy. Although, it might be those v-necks he wears, too, a bit, because his neck is a masterpiece." Stiles finished with his eyes locked straight on Peter's.

"My nephew has never worn a v-neck in his..." Peter trailed off, staring intently at Stiles. "It was me all along."

 _Way to state the obvious,_ Stiles wanted to say, to joke around like they usually did, but the words weren't making their way out of his throat. Because that was neither encouragement or rejection, but the longer Peter dragged it out, the more Stiles was certain of rejection. He wondered if there was a creature that could time travel him backwards to before he'd opened his mouth.

For a long moment, Peter said nothing.

Stiles' heart felt like it was trying to beat itself out of his chest. Maybe it wanted to find the nearest cliff, because it didn't look like dying of embarrassment was an option. "It's fine. It get it. You're not interested."

His words seemed to break Peter out of his thoughts. "I'm not interested? God save me from idiot teenagers," Peter groaned, and leaned forward, and kissed him. The angle was awkward and Stiles couldn't decide what to do with his hands and the photo album dug into his calf and it was the most perfect kiss Stiles had ever received. The most wanted and imagined, though never had Stiles imagined that they'd kiss in a dusty storage unit.

When they broke apart, Stiles said, breathlessly, "Idiot teenagers? You thought I had a crush on Derek. _Derek_. I'm never going to let you live this down."

"I think I could live with that," Peter replied, his gentle words only causing Stiles to flush. "Your feelings are hardly unrequited. But..." With a sigh, he said, "You're underage. I'm not interested in playing games, and anything between us would either be either dead the moment your father catches wind of it or a short lasting lie. My nephew's pack... is not completely brain-dead, after all. Kiss me again when you're eighteen, and I promise you, you'll never dream of leaving."

"I already don't," Stiles replied, and leaned in for one last kiss to get them through the two-month wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
